Tammy Baldwin, our sole champion in the Senate, now has a serious opponent: megamillionaire Eric Hovde.
He hasn’t officially announced yet. (More on that below.) Instead, word got out because Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, was asked about the race by a reporter in D.C.—and he responded “Eric Hovde is gonna get in that race” and “we’re behind him.”
So who is Eric Hovde? And if he’s running, why hasn’t he said it himself?
Well, readers of the Orange County Business Journal—yes, that’s Orange County in California—might recognize him as a California business leader who was named as one of Orange County’s most influential people—not just once, not just twice, but three years in a row. He made the OC 500 in 2017, 2018, and 2019 thanks to Sunwest Bank, the California mega bank that has helped generate his vast fortune.
In the grand tradition of Tim Michels, Eric Hovde ran and lost a Wisconsin Senate race and then left the state. In Hovde’s case, it was an attempt to become the Senate nominee in 2012. In that campaign, he railed again and again against the Affordable Care Act, saying “We need to repeal and replace Obamacare in its entirety,” and vowing to “defund every aspect of the ACA” if he reached the Senate.
When asked about the ACA provision that allows young people to stay on their parents’ insurance until they reach age 26, he lectured about how in his day, kids “were standing on their own two feet.”
He’s an anti-abortion extremist. During his 2012 Senate race, Hovde said he was “totally opposed to abortion.”
He’s on the record saying he “absolutely” wants to slash the earned Social Security benefits that millions of Wisconsinites rely on and raise the retirement age.
In short, compared to Tammy Baldwin—who is a diehard champion of Social Security, who is the author of the Democratic bill to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade, and who wrote that provision allowing young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance—Eric Hovde is wildly out of step with Wisconsin voters.
All of which explains why he hasn’t announced yet.
Not Ron Johnson 2022. Ron Johnson 2010.
In 2010, Ron Johnson didn’t announce his campaign until late in the game. Because of his vast personal wealth, he didn’t have to start fundraising early. He was able to avoid public scrutiny and then come out of the gate with a massive fusillade of TV ads painting himself as a reasonable, moderate businessman. That mirage is a key part of how he defeated Russ Feingold that year.
Now, Eric Hovde hopes to do the same thing. He’s likely far richer than Ron Johnson. His views are equally repellant. He hopes nobody will find out.
Our job is to ensure that his planned deception crashes and burns.
In the coming year, let’s make sure every Wisconsinite knows exactly who Eric Hovde really is—and remind them why they love Tammy Baldwin. This will be a fight. We know from bitter recent experience that Wisconsin Senate races can be excruciating. But it’s a fight we can win, and it’s a fight we must win.
Right now, Eric Hovde’s supporters think they’re running the Ron Johnson playbook. But after next fall, let’s make sure he’s remembered in the same category as Mehmet Oz.